Just Too Real
by Lady Blackmour
Summary: Riku's disappearance from the island as seen by someone entirely different...his mother. A companion piece for the epic Heir To My World
1. Default Chapter

Author's note and Disclaimer:

Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy belong to Squaresoft, I am not making any money off of this, blah blah blah.

Now that that's over with.

Hello, and I'm glad you took the time to click here.  I feel, however, that this needs a short explanation.  This is a preview piece for the upcoming epic I am co-authoring with my boyfriend, Andy, titled _Heir To My World_.  Ever since finally coming across Sephiroth in Kingdom Hearts, Andy and I were struck with the similarities between him and Riku, and looks is the least of it.  The more we learn about the two characters, the more alike they seem.  There is never any mention of Riku's parents in the game.  What if Riku is the son of Sephiroth?  _Heir_ will tell the tale of Sephiroth's return to humanity, and how finding out he has a son helps him find his way.  We are trying to keep it as in context as possible, but it will probably end up just a little A/U.

_Just Too Real_ is the first thing here, and it's sort of a character sketch.  I wanted to explore the character of Riku's mother, Arianna, so I wrote this.  I gave it its own title because I'm not sure it will ever end up in the final story, but I liked it, and wanted to post it to see what people thought.  The second bit is like the short prologue for the actual story, written by Andy.  Please leave reviews and let us know what you think!  I promise this will be an _awesome story.  We've been planning for months!  : )_

And, if there are things that confuse you, I promise that they are all explained in _Heir_.  Meanwhile, enjoy the mystery.  I will say one thing, however…as far as Sephiroth knew, Ari died.  g

And one last thing.  Lady Sanzennine is writing an awesome Seph story called _The Paths We Walk_ (go read it) in which her original character is named _Marianna.  For her or anyone else who might notice the similarity between her name and ours, Arianna, I want to promise you that Andy and I came up with Ari's name litterally __months before I read (and loved) __Paths.  So…no infringement was intended._

Thank you, and on with the story!

-Lady Blackmour


	2. Just Too Real

Just Too Real

_Lady Blackmour_

_"These wounds wounds won't seem to heal._

_This pain is just too real._

_There's just too much that time cannot erase_

_When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears_

_When you screamed I'd fight away all of your fears_

_And I held your hand through all of these years_

_But you still have all of me."_

_-Evanescence_

            When the chaos began, my first thought was that I would not find Riku.  That didn't stop me from looking, of course.  I am his mother, what else could I do?  It seemed like I searched fpr an eternity before I came to the beach, and saw him…there…on his little island connected by that bridge.  I was only there in time to see him step willingly into the black.  I saw him reach out to Sora, and I saw Sora trying to hard to hold on to him.  In that moment I knew that I would lose him, for a time at least.  But still I prayed that Sora would be able to hold him here, that he would not leave me yet.  It was weak of me, I know, but I…I did not want to be alone.

            My prayers were unanswered.  The blackness enveloped him, and he was gone.

            I sank to my knees, bowed my head.  But I did not cry.  I had always known that this would happen sooner or later.  Now, I'm not saying I expected it to happen quite like this…How could I have known?  But he is so much like his father.  Too much like him to stay with me forever.  Like his father, he's always looking for something.  Sephiroth once told me that there was always something more, something better, if we only knew how to find it.  I laughed.

            "You don't believe me?" he had asked sharply, looking very offended.  He was always so serious.

            "Of course I believe you," I grinned back at him, taking a lock of long, silvery hair between my fingers and bringing it to my lips before giving it a gentle tug.  "I believe everything you tell me.  But why does it matter to me?  I can't imagine being happier than I am with you, Sephiroth.  I think anything else would be too much for me"

            He smiled.  People used to say I was the only one who could get him to smile like that, a genuine, happy smile.  He pulled me into his arms and leaned his face against the top of my head.  "Fair enough, Arianna," he whispered, and I could still hear the smile in his voice.  I smiled back, burrowing farther into him, studying the way our long hair tangled together when he held me like that.  Black on white…light and dark, dark and light…but which was which?  I giggled at the philisophical turn my thoughts were taking.  Maybe he was rubbing off on me more than I realized.

            "What's so funny now?" he asked, sounding maybe just a little exasperated.

            "Nothing," I replied.  "I'm just happy.  And I love you."

            He sighed, giving me a gentle squeeze.  "I love you too, Ari.  You're right.  It is enough."

            I believed him, too.  But it wasn't enough.

            And it isn't that he lied to me!  No, he never lied to me.  I believed everything he told me then, and if he came back now, I still would.  But everyone is wrong sometimes, even him.  He just didn't know.  He didn't, he couldn't.  And he left.  I don't remember why, I only remember…I was sick, and he stayed with me throughout, never left my side, always telling me I would get better, even though it looked as if I would die.

            And then I was better, suddenly, but…he was gone.  But I know…I *know* there was a good reason.  He never did anything without a good reason.  I was only seventeen when he left, and I was only seventeen when I discovered, soon afterwords, that he had left me with more than just memories.  I don't know when it happened, and I don't know how.  But in that moment, I was so grateful for it.  This way, I would never really be without him.  Of course, there would have been a scandal, so I left before anyone found out.  I left and came here, to this island, though…I don't remember how I got here.  Either way, I suppose it doesn't really matter.  I was happy here.  It's warm, and beautiful, and I love the smell of the ocean.

            Riku was born several months later.  I held him in my arms, and it was as if Sephiroth was there with me again.  Riku didn't cry.  He just looked up at me, blinking in the harsh light after nine months of darkness, and I saw his eyes for the first time.  They were not the dark, cloudy blue that most enfants eyes are the first weeks of life, before they change to become their true colour.  They were brilliant, electric blue, tinted with green…enough to make them almost turquoise.  No one had those eyes except…I smiled, brushing a hand through his thick, downy hair.  Riku had his father's eyes.  My heart, already so full of love for this tiny being, swelled so that I thought I would explode.  I wept.  Riku was ours.  We had created him, and he was the living proof of our love.  I knew then that Sephiroth would return to me some day.

            I would find out soon enough that his eyes were not all my son had inherited from Sephiroth.  His hair was dark when he was born, but that did not last long.  When he was a few weeks old it began to fall out.  When it came back in, it could not have been more different.  It was so light as to be white.

            When he was five, he met a young boy named Sora, who was then only four.  They were best friends in almost no time.  Sora was sweet, and carefree, a good match for my son, who was always too serious, even at such a tender age.  Sora adored me as well.  I like to think he looked up to me as a second mother.  I certainly considered him my second son.

           Time passed.  Riku grew unbelievably strong for one so young, became like a leader among the children of the island.  And he began to wish for adventure.  He wanted to see other places, other "worlds," he called them.  He wanted _more._

            And so here I am, alone, on the beach, my world falling apart around me, both literally and figuratively.  I've had him by my side for fifteen years, and maybe that's as long as I can expect for someone like him.  It doesn't really make it any easier.  But I take comfort in knowing that he'll come back to me.  Just like his father, he has to come back to me.  That is my last thought before the ground begins to tremble even more violently, and I look up to see pieces of the land falling away into nothing as if…as if there is a great void beneath us.  I should be afraid, but somehow I know this is not the end.  I look up to where Riku disappeared, and I see a horrible, black creature, and…Sora?...wielding a blade of some sort against it.  I smile.  Sora, little carefree Sora…  Then darkness takes me, and I know no more.


	3. Heir To My World preview

Heir To My World-a preview

_Andrew Kelly_

            Justice.  Fate.  Accuracy is paramount.  I make no mistakes.  There are none to make.  My tasks are well defined.  Defined.  Refined.  Perfection.  I hold worlds in ethereal hands; my fingers weave a cradle of all life's destiny.  Every moment has in it a thousand possiblilties.  They are mine, they are theirs; they are the ether of existence.  All life to the smallest most transient cell is mine to observe at my leisure.  Time bends to my needs, which are the needs of time and space and life and death.  I see all that is and what will be, yet is seems I see very little.  I have all the time in the world to mend the problems that will never be.  That is my charge, my existence.  My own voice has fallen silent before the awesome power of my present call, fuelled by the breath of life and the power of Armageddon.  Sound is a thing for the living, my duties, my subjects.

            There is a sphere before me now.  Closer.  Closer.  A battle cry muffled by its slowness.  He swings his arm.  Further.  The gleam of a sword—_Silence!_  The beast has stopped and hangs before me suspended.  We are now the same height.  I consider the grimace on his contorted face.  Savage.  A small collection of atoms are becoming unbonded on his blade.  I smile.  He cannot perceive them, can he?  No.  Ah well.  Better now, they are mended.  A man stands behind me, frozen as well.  His defending sword would have broken the beast's weapon.  But the beast has business before he falls to another this day.  I reopen the sky and return to my rest.  The only beam of light flying on a single wing.  This is justice.

            There is no longer any challenge.  I execute what the universe bids me.  I am the Enforcement; the Arbiter.  I am Sephiroth.


End file.
